The VR presents a broader selection of well-known Zsuzsi Ujj works as well as never-before-exhibited pieces, from her very first photographs from the series With a Broom and In the Corner featuring dotted body painting to prints from the In Circle series that concluded her oeuvre. Attention to motivic repetition and objects (especially the various uses of mirrors or foil), and the narrative power of alternating close-up and distant views are equally at play in this selection and arrangement. The presentation of exclusively vintage prints – with one exception (With an Egg, 1986/2023) – includes representative works that have become the artist’s trademark, ‘hard graded’ almost to the point of having a graphic effect (the series of five that was once exhibited in the United States, including the well-known Bridal, but also the rarely exhibited Giving Birth). The selection also includes pieces of the Lap, Flying and Wrapped series (1986) with both hard and soft tonal variations, as well as With a Throne, which has become the most famous work by Zsuzsi Ujj, and its ‘couplet’, the aforementioned With an Egg, the dressed-up self-portrait variations using transitions and multiplications, a piece from the Sun Lamp series, which is undeniably related to the works of Tibor Hajas, and the pieces of the With Öcsi series that boasts a strong narrative force.

Ujj Zsuzsi szemléletmódjában az irodalom és a zene szeretete mellett kiemelkedő szerep jut a mozgóképes gondolkodásnak is – az alkotó dolgozott is a Balázs Béla Stúdióban, Forgács Péter Privát Magyarország archívumában, valamint a Fekete Doboz Alapítványnál is. A történetmesélés módjában, illetve a filmstillekre emlékeztető beállítások alkalmazásában ennek az érdeklődésnek a nyomait lehet felfedezni. Miután a fényképezőgépet szó szerint mikrofonra cserélte a kilencvenes évek elején, a Csókolom zenekar alapítótagjaként, énekeseként és szövegírójaként a magyar alternatív zenei élet meghatározó alakjává vált. Az utóbbi évtizedben Darvas Kristóf zongoristával duóban is dolgozik.

Being a member of the circle around Liget Gallery in Budapest, which was home to experimental genres and the ‘alternative’ uses of photography by visual artists, the choice of photography as a medium was self-explanatory for the young artist who had already been writing for years and devoted to film. It was the curatorial work of Tibor Várnagy and the Liget Gallery he managed that provided Zsuzsi Ujj with her first exhibition opportunities and, thanks to the gallery’s network, opportunities to exhibit internationally as well. Nevertheless, Zsuzsi Ujj’s photographs, or more precisely their multiple layers and diversity, the quantity of her series, perhaps due to the short period of time in which she used the language of visual art, were for a long time known only to a narrow circle of professionals. A landmark event in the (re)discovery of her oeuvre in Hungary and abroad was the artist’s participation in the show Gender Check (2009) and her being invited to the exhibition Bigger Splash: Painting After Performance Art (Tate Modern, London, 2012), in which MissionArt Gallery’s activities proved to be fundamental. As of 2021, Zsuzsi Ujj’s oeuvre has been in the care of acb Gallery, and it was in this capacity that the gallery contributed to the organisation of the exhibition Zsuzsi Ujj: Self Timer at the Castle Gallery in Veszprém in 2021, and in the same year to the exhibition Zsuzsi Ujj: First Notebook at Liget Gallery, and to the presentations of Zsuzsi Ujj’s work in New York and Los Angeles in collaboration with James Danziger Gallery.

Wall painting by János Borsos.